Friday, March 19, 2010

Priorities are powerful forces... assuming you've got them in the right order. And keeping them there requires continual monitoring.

So what are your priorities?

Most of us - myself included - get batted around like a pinball from one activity to the next. Our days are spent finishing up that urgent project at work for which the boss is breathing down our necks... seeing to the needs of our kids... phoning parents to check how they are... dashing to the shops to pick up a last-minute birthday present.

We go to bed exhausted, only to get up tomorrow and do it all over again. Lives spent scuttling from one weekend to the next, firefighting whatever today's most pressing need happens to be.

But what about that life you'd really like to be leading? The one you keep nestled somewhere close to your heart?

We all have one, don't we? That 'if I won the Lottery...' vision of how things would be in a perfect world. Where you'd like to live. How you'd like to spend your time. And with whom. The long-term dream.

Making that vision reality though takes consistent action, and time. Progressive, daily steps. And to do anything on a daily basis means prioritizing.

It's something with which I still struggle. But I'm getting better at doing the things that are most important to me by making them top of my daily to-do list - tackle them first thing, before the day's events catch me up in other activities.

And I'm starting to see it pay off. In fact I'm feeling pretty good, for I've just finished revising the print version of my book on the pros and cons of moving abroad, and sent it off to my publisher.

It's not been easy mind.

As with so many other people around the world, it's been a tough year.

The financial crisis has forced me to scramble for work like never before. And outside of the long work hours are my commitments as a husband and father.

As a result, it's not always easy to find time to do the 'non-urgent' writing I really want, the books and screenplays that one day I hope will be my full-time occupation.

I realized though that unless I made the time, prioritized the writing in my day, it would never get done. And my dreams of being an author would go the same way.

And it's the same in all aspects of life. We all have to find time to pursue our dreams, whatever they are.

If you want to learn the piano it's never going to happen unless you sit at the keyboard on a regular basis - preferably every day - and hammer out the notes.

How are you ever going to get your golf handicap down if you don't stand on the driving range, or get out on the course?

Ditto that vision of the sun-filled expat life, the world of adventures. There may never be a great time to up-sticks and move to a foreign country. There are always other financial pressures, kids about to change schools, new job promotions in the offing. Valid obstacles that keep you from taking action, from grabbing that life you want.

But that's the choice you must make. You have to seize the moment - take the requisite steps, however small, and make progress. Without it, your life will never become what you want it to be.

Paul Allen is a freelance journalist and writer who has lived in northern Spain since 2003. He is the author of "Should I Stay Or Should I Go? The Truth About Moving Abroad And Whether It's Right For You," a comprehensive guide for anyone seeking advice on whether or not to move abroad. For more details about the book, and free information and advice on moving and living overseas, visit his website at http://www.expatliving101.com/.